One Step Ahead part I | Sirius Black

Chapter 191

The first thing Gwen notices when she and Sirius land in the smoke filled village, is the familiar symbol lurking above her head.

Greenish black clouds, morphing and shifting until they transformed into a skull, a snake circling from the mouth. A symbol that could only mean death.

She takes a deep breath, reminds herself that she's not a kid anymore. That the bodies she already sees aren't her mother. That when she turns them over she won't see grey skin, sallow cheeks. White eyes. No, she wouldn't see that. She couldn't.

"Gwen,"

She looks up at the sound of Sirius' voice, her heart thumping when Alastor Moody shouts, "Gwenyth! Go find Frank and Alice!"

Bodies stream past them as they stand silently for a few moments, members of the Order charging into the village as screams and shouts erupt. And Gwen is scared. She knows she's scared. Not of dying. Of living without Sirius. But she knows she has to do this, to play her pet in this fight.

She watches the boy she loves, watches his mouth open to protest Alastor's decision. But then he pauses, and Gwen is stunned for the second time that day when Sirius starts to zip up her coat, grabbing her hand and wrapping it tightly around her wand. He looks pained by his own decision.

She had to go. And he had to let her.

"Reviens-moi. Je t'en prie, reviens-moi."
{{come back to me. Please come back to me.}}

Gwen swallows past the lump in her throat at his soft spoken words, memorizing the way his grey eyes shine with emotions so fluidly, so beautifully. She envied his ability to feel, to be explosive in nature and to be able to control it. Her head bobs up and down, ears ringing from the shouts and cries around them. She says it firmly, says it as emotionally as she can in the hopes to convey that she feels everything his eyes show her,

"Tojours."

Sirius smiles, his eyes crinkling. And then he's squeezing her arm, he's bending to kiss her cheek, and then he too is going. The two part ways without another word, Gwen sprinting through the crowd in one direction while Sirius races after James and Remus, his mind cloudy with fear. He runs until his lungs burn, until he forced himself to not think about blue eyes and blonde hair. He runs until he's confronted with the darkness of his past, his wand extended as he shouts,

"Stupefy!"

He's not sure who the death eater is, the mask shrouding his face as he quickly throws up a defensive spell. He feels James by his side, the two of them throwing hexes and jinxes together until the dark wizard stumbles and James shouts,

"Petrificus Totalus!"

Sirius grins when the death eater slumps to the ground, shouting over the noise, "Nice one, James!"

And then Remus is there, casting binding charms so that the death eater cannot escape when James' spell wears off. James pats him on the shoulder and then they're off again, passing Marlene McKinnon as she backs down a death eater on her own, Dorcas not far behind as she guides screaming mothers and children towards the portkeys waiting to take them away from here.

Sirius nearly trips over a body in his search for his next fight, his stomach churning at the flat expression on the wizard's face, his hand limply grasping a wand. He pauses, watching the shrinking forms of James and Remus in the distance. He can't stop himself from kneeling, from reaching up and closing the man's eyes as he whispers, "I'm sorry."

He's apologizing, not because it's his fault. But because the world he'd been born into had destroyed a man, had likely ripped away someone's father, someone's husband. Sirius swallows down bile and stands. He's sorry because in another world, in another universe, he could have been the reason for this poor man's death. How anyone thought this, murder, made  them pure was beyond him.

He coughs on smoke as he stands, leaving behind the man and his misplaced guilt and jogging onward to find a crowd of crying children. Muggles by the looks of terror. He guides them in the direction of Dorcas, telling one of the eldest, "Keep going. Don't stop running until you see her. She's very nice, she's got lots of curly hair and loves books. Do you like stories?"

The girl, tall and covered in dirt and tears nods her head up and down. Sirius smiles, saying encouragingly, "She has lots of stories, all of the best ones. I bet she'll write one about you. You've been so brave, but I need you to be even stronger for this next part."

The girl nods, swiping at her tears and squaring her shoulders. He looks over his shoulder, finding that the smoke is clearing in the direction of Dorcas. The fight was headed deeper into the heart of the muggle village, leaving the outskirts damaged and broken. These children. Broken. Sirius only hopes they'll be okay, long after they've been forced to forget this night. Forced to forget him.

The girl takes off, guiding the group of kids towards Dorcas who is already beckoning them forward from the distance. Sirius doesn't watch. He can't. He just has to hope.

Clenching his wand, he travels deeper into the village, ducking when a house explodes from the force of a nearby curse. Sirius pushes on, creeps closer to the sounds of screams that he won't forget any time soon. He shouts a warning to Peter in the distance, his friend turning just in time to block a curse headed straight for him.

Alastor is by his side, hurling spells faster than the masked death eaters can defend themselves, and Sirius goes to move forward, goes to escape yet another blast of shrapnel from a house that's soon coated in flames.

But this time the fight comes to him in the form of a person all to familiar.

"Cousin!"

Sirius grimaces, raising his wand and firing a curse at the black haired witch standing before him. She gasps mockingly, deflecting the spell with a flick of her crooked wand. She'd always been a bitch.

He tastes smoke on his tongue, his lips curling into a grimace as he greets, "Bella. Shame to see you here."

His cousin grins, and he tries to remember a time where she wasn't cruel. Where she wasn't evil and tainted by bitterness. He can't. She'd been relentless in childhood, had watched on with pride when his father had beat the daylights out of him for kissing a muggle girl. He'd been a boy. They'd just been children. But some children were destined for an eternity of darkness. He could only be grateful that Gwen had met Regulus before he'd succumbed to it.

"I could say the same thing. I always knew your were the black sheep, Sirius. Regulus however...the dark lord was none too pleased about that."

Sirius sucks in a breath at the mention of her precious lord, the two of them slowly circling each other. He just needs to surprise her, he only needs the upper hand for a moment. And then she would be his, and he can't help but feel a rush of adrenaline at the thought of getting back at her. Loyalty to his family didn't run in his veins. But he'd certainly inherited the addiction to revenge.

Bellatrix pauses, lowering her wand, and fluttering her eyelashes in an attempt to work up tears. Sirius knew she didn't have it in her to cry, but his curiosity is halted when she sniffles, "If only my poor Uncle didn't have to suffer through disowning his only children. If only he'd been strong enough to withstand it."

"What the fuck are you talking about?" Sirius spits, his skin prickling with apprehension. He's tired of this, tired of her. He's itching to rejoin James, to chase after more death eaters and leave his crazy cousin behind.

And then her mask of faux sympathy cracks, revealing a wicked glint in her soulless eyes as she says simply,

"Orion is dead."